None The Less, Winter Is The Time When A Little
Shooting Is Done Here, Chiefly Wild Boars And Roe-Deer.
They are driven
down towards the sea, but only as far as the railway line.
Those that
escape into the lower portions are safe for another year, as this is
never shot over but kept as a permanent preserve. I have been told that
red-deer were introduced, ut that the experiment failed; probably the
country was too not and damp. In his account of Calabria, Duret de Tavel
[Footnote: An English translation of his book appeared in 1832.]
sometimes speaks of killing the fallow-deer, an autochthonous
Tyrrhenian beast which is now extinct on the mainland in its wild state.
Nor can he be confounding it with the roe, since he mentions the two
together - for instance, in the following note from Corigliano (February,
1809), which must make the modern Calabrian's mouth water:
"Game has multiplied to such an extent that the fields are ravaged, and
we are rendering a real service in destroying it. I question whether
there exists in Europe a country offering more varied species. . . . We
return home followed by carriages and mules loaded with wild boars,
roe-deer, fallow-deer, hares, pheasants, wild duck, wild geese - to say
nothing of foxes and wolves, of which we have already killed an immense
quantity."
The pheasants seem to have likewise died out, save in royal preserves.
They were introduced into Calabria by that mighty hunter Frederick II.
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